News Reactions: Jack's Abby Buys Night Shift Brewing

Jack’s Abby, based in Framingham, MA, announced its acquisition of Boston’s Night Shift Brewing this past week, marking its second significant purchase of the year. Back in in April, Jack’s Abby acquired Wormtown Brewing from Worcester, MA, strategically assembling a formidable local trio. While Wormtown enhanced Jack’s Abby’s portfolio with a strong focus on IPAs, complementing their well-known lagers, Night Shift adds even more diversity with its wide range of styles and a welcoming brand presence. This acquisition also opens up numerous new retail opportunities in the Boston area, boosting high-margin, direct-to-consumer sales. For a few reasons, the news didn’t come as a big surprise, but still leaves us with a fascinating mini conglomerate called Hendler Family Brewing Company.

Hardly Surprising

The news isn’t necessarily surprising to anyone who has followed these two breweries behind the scenes. During a brief news cycle around CO2 shortages in July 2022, Night Shift laid off their production team and began a contract brewing relationship with Jack’s Abby. As a result, this week’s acquisition doesn’t come with a significant reduction in workforce since that unfortunate reckoning already took place two years ago.

Many ex-employees have reached out to me claiming that the CO2 shortage was just an excuse, but perhaps it was more so the final straw after a long struggle with their Everton facility. Around the time of the announcement, Night Shift was quoted in Boston.com as saying:

A few years ago, it became clear to us that we’d outgrown our Everett production facility. For a brewery of our size, the space poses many challenges and limitations, including limited storage capacity, short ceiling heights, awkward layouts, and lack of proper loading bays. Our plan was to build a larger facility in Philly, but then COVID-19 hit, and we had to abandon it.

A Lot of Pots 🥘 ♨️

I’ve always followed Night Shift closely because they always seemed to make the news cycle in ways that grabbed my attention. At times I couldn’t fathom how they managed to keep all this straight:

• Early beginnings focused on cork & cage Berliner Weisses

• Shift to IPAs in 4-pack 16oz cans

• Starting a craft beer distributor in 2016 to control their own logistics and represent other brands, which was later sold in 2021.

• Being an early innovator in the craft Light Lager trend with the introduction of Nite Lite

• Aggressive plans to build a new production facility in Philadelphia, which were later canceled.

• Embracing Hard Seltzer

• Expanding in Coffee

• And Night Shift’s…

Significant Retail Presence

Night Shift’s 5 owned retail locations are expected to continue their normal operations, giving the combined business a significantly expanded presence in Boston where breweries like Trillium, and more recently Tree House, have a significant presence. Night Shift also has two licensed/branded locations in the Encore Casino and Level99 Social Gaming Playground which are expected to continue with business as usual.

Despite the news not being all that surprising, there’s still a wow factor when considering what Hendler Family Brewing Company has assembled in just one year. Per the Brewers Association, the three breweries ended 2023 with the following production numbers:

• Jack’s Abby (38th Largest) - 67,500 BBLs

• Night Shift Brewing (85th Largest) - 30,465 BBLs

• Wormtown Brewing (136th Largest) - 19,500 BBLs

In theory, that would have made the newly formed Hendler Family Brewing Company the 18th largest craft brewery in the US in 2023 at 117,465 BBLs and #1 in Massachusetts, just ahead of nearby Harpoon Brewing who reported 115,100 BBLs. The company announcement conservatively claimed a Top 30 status and “over 100,000 BBLs”, perhaps due to some anticipated declines due to the headwinds craft beer has faced in 2024.

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Beer Cruncher Reactions: 🤩 😌 🤔 🙄 🧐

I have a whole lot of thoughts and questions regarding the strategies and challenges that come with integrating these three companies for the premium subscribers supporting what I do: